


En pointe

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Pre-Sburb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Rose requests ballet lessons. This is more of a Mom character study than anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	En pointe

Rose Lalonde is seven years old. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, hips tilted, all fourty-four pounds of her weight carefully balanced _contrapposto_. "Mom," she says, simply and without prelude of any kind.

Ms. Lalonde is lounging in the great room, listening to the rain come down outside. It's earsplitting. She hasn't had a migraine this bad since the last time she was drunk out of her mind at two in the afternoon, which, coincidentally enough, was yesterday. Perhaps that's why she keeps drinking: to stave off the inevitable hangovers. She laughs bitterly to herself; Strider would get a kick out of how depravedly ironic that one is. Of course, _he_ had been able to give up all of his various vices when his little bundle of joy came hopping down from the sky. She hadn't been quite so loosely attached to the siren's call of a fine vermouth as he had been to all his sundry accoutrements.

" _Mom_ ," Rose says again, louder.

Ms. Lalonde gives no indication that she hadn't heard her daughter the first time. "Yes, my dear."

Rose clears her throat and begins to speak. "You have no doubt taken notice of my recent show of interest in formalized performance dances such as _Swan Lake_ and _The Nutcracker_. It is for this reason that I now request your permission to enroll in ballet classes of my own." It's immediately crystal clear that she's practiced this speech many, many times in the full-length mirror at the end of the hall; she doesn't stumble once. A request like this has to be made perfectly or it risks being shot down without hesitation.

Ms. Lalonde runs a tight ship.

"Your interest seems to gravitate around Tchaikovsky," Ms. Lalonde notes, not without a certain bite to her voice. No daughter of hers will be restrained by anything so pedestrian. She takes a sip of her martini. "Have you considered Bournonville or Prokofiev? Someone more obscure?"

"I'm quite fond of _Swan Lake_ ," Rose insists.

"Alright, alright." She only says it to keep the girl's voice down; it does so echo in the room that's no less than twice as large as it has any right to be. "Tomorrow, I shall see to it that you're studying under the finest tutor that will agree to have you with such short notice." She means to make Rose think with that statement, to teach her patience, to make her wonder _if only I had been wiling to wait, what then?_ ; but there's only so many ways she knows how to do that, and blatant passive aggression is one of them. It doesn't give her any pause to think that the child is only seven years of age and she maybe should be treated with a softer temperament. There are things she needs to know _now_ because they'll have been important to her by the time any normal child would have learned them.

"Yes, of course, Mother," Rose says, and treads back up the stairs without making a sound, walking on her tiptoes in a small attempt not to inconvenience her inebriated caretaker any further.

Ms. Lalonde runs a tight ship, but she is not a bad mother. She's not. She just lets all the alcohol get a little out of hand sometimes; you know how it is.


End file.
